Description
ETHIOPIA:
Its Culture and Its Birds
By DEAN HOBBS BLANCHARD
Foreword by Alfred M. Bailey, Director Denver Museum of Natural History
Dust jacket: Bateleur eagle painting and bird drawing, both by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, courtesy Field Museum of Natural History
Pen-and-ink sectional dividers and jacket design by Campbell Grant
Joining a party led by the late Dr. Thomas A. Lambie, celebrated medical-missionary, not too long before Mussolini took over Ethiopia, the author traveled over 2,000 miles by muleback out of Addis Ababa, finally northward to the source of the Blue Nile.
While collecting bird specimens native to Africa underscored his chief objective, he proved a keen observer of village life. Part One, angled to the layman, is an entertaining chronicle of dangerous — yet often hilarious — incidents along the trail.
An excellent wing shot, he assembled bird specimens by day; then generally sat up most of the night preserving their skins, dissecting their bodies, besides writing his ornithological notes.
Part Two, of particular appeal to the ornithologist, opens with a “Table of Birds” covering the specimens collected, each bird series identified according to the accepted system of zoological nomenclature. Further information envelops records of location, behavior, flight pattern plus pertinent data revealed by under-the-tent dissection
DEAN BLANCHARD, son of a pioneer California family, has extended his studies of natural history to include work at Europe’s leading museums and in-the-field research and exploration on the seven continents. He is a member of the Cooper Ornithological Society, of the American Ornithologists’ Union and of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Ecuador, Crown Jewel of the Andes is the title of an earlier book. He and his wife, Carolyn Smith Blanchard, make their home in Santa Barbara, California.
source: revers de jaquette.